The Democratic Party is looking to rebrand, or, at least, has begun to consider a makeover of sorts. A crushing election loss and nose-diving approval ratings have finally spurred some on the left into action. It is not yet certain that the party has nailed down the real reasons it suffered an electoral collapse in November of 2024 – which should be obvious – but preparations are now underway to repair the damage. Whether it succeeds or not is yet to be seen, but a new Democratic initiative, code-named SAM, is in the works.
Several Democrats have decided that the onus is on them to make changes. That’s a shift from the period between last year’s post-election tantrum and April of 2025. During those six months, the narrative adhered to by just about everyone on the left was that racism, sexism, and ignorance had motivated most American voters to reject the party of tolerance and diversity in favor of Trump’s mean MAGA machine. It now appears that a few influencers within Democratic Party circles have accepted that it was the party and not the electorate that fell short.
SAM to the Rescue?
One of the most obvious cultural misfires of many Democratic politicians has been the demonization of heterosexual masculinity. Progressives, including some identifying as journalists, have at one time or another linked right-wing extremism, white supremacy, and even fascism to masculinity, physical exercise, the eating of red meat, and, of course, guns.
It seems progressives like their males to be weak, emotional, and willing to date “trans women.” Notice an August 10, 2023, article published by Medium under the headline, “Not Wanting to Date a Trans Person is Transphobic…Here’s Why.” That’s not the only example of the far-left spreading a message that could not be more off-putting for any straight red-blooded American male.
This is where SAM comes in. Part of a new $20 million voter outreach scheme, SAM is short for “Speaking with American Men: A Strategic Plan.”
Kamala Harris’ 2024 deputy campaign manager, Rob Flaherty, recently told The New York Times, “Over a long period of time, our party overdrew our trust account with the American people.” That seems like a very clever way of saying Democratic politicians have, for decades, pandered to certain demographics, cynically courting their votes while doing little or nothing to improve their lives.
At the same time, they talked down to and alienated other demographics. Christians and blue-collar white males, in particular, appeared to have been pinpointed as groups many Democrats felt were beyond their reach or did not fit in the brave new world they imagined they were shaping.
Tim Walz-ing Matilda
The Harris presidential campaign appeared to operate in a fantasy world in which it was cruising toward a joyous and easy victory. However, it may have woken up to one of the harsh realities of the Democratic Party's struggle. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz was roped in as Kamala’s running mate. As Walz himself suggested in a recent interview, he was picked because he could “code talk to white guys.” The very fact that he put it like that is proof enough that he could not, in fact, code talk to white guys.
Not only was Walz not the man for the job, but he also probably made things worse. Prancing around on campaign stages in the most unserious – and unmanly – manner, pretending to change an air filter in a truck, which, clearly, he had never done before. Walz showed that Democrats - once considered the working-class party - had completely lost touch with the average American male.
Speaking of men, putting the SAM project into action does appear to undermine the progressives’ insistence that everything should be viewed through a non-binary – as opposed to a “gender-specific” – lens.
The SAM initiative indicates that the left, while realizing they have lost most working-class men – and perhaps a growing number of male college students – has learned little. Throwing millions of dollars at a problem to fund research and focus groups is how the Democratic Party seemingly tackles every issue – often without positive results.
What Men Want
As well, they don’t appear to have understood the root of this problem. Men are supremely uncomplicated. They don’t want politicians to speak with them. Men want politicians to enact policies that will provide good jobs and give them the ability to provide for and protect their families. Men want law and order, guns, beer, baseball, football, fishing, and barbeques on July 4th – without being maligned for celebrating. Men want real women, not screeching, angry, blue-haired harpies. Men want the Star-Spangled Banner – sung the way it should be sung and not the hip-hop version.
The article from The New York Times that quotes Rob Flaherty also claims, “Communities that Democrats had come to count on for a generation or more — young people, Black voters, Latinos — all veered toward the right in 2024, some of them sharply.” That may be true, but it seems, again, that it’s the voters who are being blamed. Perhaps these voting blocs – if one is to assume they are monolithic – did not veer anywhere. Perhaps the Democratic Party veered sharply to the left, and these people saw Trump as a sane alternative.
Democratic officeholders may need to find some humility and figure out that most people, probably even a great many lifelong Democratic voters, quite likely do not want what they are trying to push. They do not want America remade into a dystopian, woke DEI fantasy world in which dissent or even a simple longing for traditional values is not tolerated. Maybe they want America, how it should be – how it was always supposed to be.
There is a final – and probably the most assured – reason why SAM will not solve the Democratic Party's problems. It is almost certain that whoever is out on the streets, on the phones, and in focus groups will follow directives to do one of two things. They will be speaking with men in solid blue areas, and for the most part, they’ll hear things that validate what they want to believe men hope for and expect. Or, they will speak to men in solid red places and will be so mortified by what they hear that they will abandon SAM and return to vilifying those Americans who refuse to see things their way.
